Videos of Saudi Women Daring to Drive

“Today is Friday, and I would like to drive to the supermarket to get some stuff.” So said one of the many Saudi women joining the #Women2Drive campaign today to protest their country’s prohibition on women driving by defying the law, driving themselves—perhaps to the supermarket, to get some stuff—and uploading evidence of it to YouTube.

The main force behind the protest is Manal Al Sharif, who was arrested on May 22nd for disturbing the public order by uploading a video to YouTube of herself driving. In that video, Sharif and the woman filming her lament the humiliations and expenses that women must endure by having to depend on taxis, hired drivers, or family members for rides. One woman she knows spends a third of her salary on her driver, Sharif says.

Prior to her arrest, Sharif had issued instructions, via Facebook, for today’s protest. “Only women who have valid driving licenses from other countries are to drive,” reads Rule No. 2. (The country bans women from driving by requiring that they have locally issued licenses, which are not given to women.) Rule No. 4: “Everyone should drive with their safety belts on and drive carefully.” (For more on that, they can visit the Manal Driving School, an online driving school named after Sharif.)

The protest began early today. This woman set off at 12:40 A.M.

Aziza, shown below, risked daylight for her drive, but asked the man filming her to “focus on my hands.” (That’s the Koran that she’s playing in the background—fairly standard car listening in the Arab world.)

In this video, the kids came along for the ride.

On Twitter, where the day of disobedience is being documented, there are rumors that police have been told to ignore women drivers for today (“what if women drive tomorrow? Or the day after that?” asked NPR’s Andy Carvin), but also stories to the contrary. “In a car with a saudi woman and just got pulled over by the police. 6 police cars for one woman driver!!” tweeted Lynsey Addario. “Police didn’t know what to do, so gave the woman a ticket for not having a license. She has two driver’s licenses!!”

Many Westerners have shown their support by tweeting, “We’re all Saudi women today.” The sentiment is right, and yet, watching this woman’s delight at a task that most of us enjoy for its powers of liberation for no more than a month or two, at age sixteen, before we learn to complain about traffic and gas prices, makes clear just how much, when it comes to the right being fought for today, we are not all Saudi women. Also, we’re not facing arrest.